Chapter 2 - Research Matters: Our Apartheid: The Imperative of Multiculturalism in Science education by Randy Moore
Used with permission of the National Science Teachers Association
"Despite decades-long proclamations about the importance of "Science for All," our educational system has produced a scientific apartheid. Although African-Americans and Hispanics comprise almost 25% of the U.S. population, they earn only 13% of the U.S. science and engineering bachelor degrees, and only 7% of the doctorates (Rey, 2001). Only 1/3 of the minority students who begin in the sciences graduate with a degree in science or engineering (Rey, 2001).
Similarly, black and Hispanic scientists and engineers are less likely than white faculty to be full professors, and they earn lower salaries than white scientists and engineers. Of the more than 1,800 living scientists elected to the National Academies of Sciences, only two are African-American.
The most common strategy in recent years for increasing minority representation in science has been recruiting more minorities into science classes. This approach is based on the popular assumption that we best serve students from underrepresented groups by helping them "fit in" and adapt to existing curricula and teaching methods. However, these compensatory programs have often failed because they have placed the responsibility of reform on those already marginalized by science.
Marginalized students are not the problem; the system that marginalizes them is. As a result, most minorities continue to feel implicitly inferior and unwelcome in the neighborhood of science. Because science education has not accommodated the different learning styles and cultural backgrounds of most of these students, many longstanding obstacles remain.
We should all be concerned about the lack of diversity in science. In addition to the moral and ethical problems associated with the exclusion of minorities, there is a pragmatic reward for involving them: Diversified viewpoints enhance science. For example, before 1993, when President Bill Clinton signed legislation requiring the National Institutes of Health to include women and minorities in all of their clinical health studies, there was no federal policy to adequately enforce the representation of these two groups in public health research. As a result, scientists and science teachers often lacked data for a variety of important phenomena that affect women and minorities. Similarly, important new theories and ideas have been discovered when traditionally excluded groups have been given opportunities to excel in science.
We must rededicate ourselves to making our courses, curricula, and classrooms more accessible and friendly to minority students, students with disabilities, and students from poor socioeconomic backgrounds. This demands hard work.
But there is good news. We already know what to do. We must:
- Consider the terms upon which students are included in (and excluded from) science
- Help students see themselves reflected in the curriculum
- Value courses that function as ‘pumps " to help students succeed instead of sieves that "weed out" students
- Understand our students’ demographic diversity and the social construction of group differences
- Emphasize process and discovery over "facts"
- Stress knowledge as something that is constructed by students rather than a commodity imparted by teachers
- Recognize the unequal academic opportunities that characterize different socioeconomic backgrounds
- Discuss the biases of science and
- Acknowledge how factually neutral tests and knowledge can in practice reinforce the power and influence of dominant groups.
If "Science for All" is to be achieved, science educators must respond to educational inequalities. Similarly, if we are to enhance science education, we must remove the structural, institutional, and pedagogical barriers that impede or block the success of minorities. It’s up to each of us to help students feel invested in and capable of succeeding in science. "Science for All" begins with access for all.
Reference
Rey, C.M. 2001. Making room for diversity makes sense. Science 293: 1611-1612